MECHANICAL

SELF-CONTROL.

THERE is scarcely a spectacle on this round mechanical world more interesting than a huge steam-engine bending its pivot-joints, and plying its iron limbs with a giant's power. The circle of the writer's familiar acquaintance includes a grim Bolton-and-Watt framed Titan of this species, whom it is particularly pleasant to be on visiting terms with. The writer has long been free to lounge into this grim giant's reception-room whenever it pleases him, and has often stood there entranced in gazing at the monster as he heaves his massive spine up and down, and turns a huge twentyfeet wide fly-wheel, weighing, Messrs Bolton and Watt only know how many tons of iron, by the unceasing pressure of his cranky hand. The strength he puts out upon his whirling task, is altogether as prodigious as it seems. The relentless sweep of the rim of that colossal wheel, as it rushes past the eye with a speed of nearly twenty miles an hour, amply tells how fearful a task it would be to have to arrest its progress. The strength of a hundred horses concentred in the effort, would be of no avail.

The steam-giant under notice is a very contented workman, in his way. When he has been once set going, he does not at all care how long he is kept at his labour; minutes or hours, weeks or years, are all the same to him; he is entirely indifferent about holidays and sleep. All he requires is, that his employers shall feed him well while his limbs are exerted in their service. He never strikes for wages, but he will strike at any time if food is withheld from him when he ought to receive it, and then not another turn can be extracted from his mighty and otherwise willing arm. He is by no means either an epicure or a gourmand, but it has been found to be good policy to have him treated with great consideration in the matter of diet. A trustworthy and experienced attendant is kept to watch the indications of his appetite, and to serve his meals at proper times. If the curious observer goes round into his dining-room, he will see this attendant shovelling food into the giant's yawning mouth, for he does not care to take his own hand from his labour even whilst at his meals. It will be noticed, too, that his food consists of black glistening lumps, and the giant will be heard to roar with satisfaction as each mouthful is pitched into his capacious gullet, and gulped down. All the energies of the Titanic labourer come, in fact, out of that black, glistening food. Having swallowed it, he digests it in his furnace-stomach, and there assimilates it into fervid power. Since he thus knocks off such a quantity of work, it will be readily conceived that he is somewhat of a hearty feeder. He eats at least three tons of solid food every day!

There is one peculiarity about this Titanic labourer of the iron thews which is worthy of remark. A giant by nature, of noble extraction, he nevertheless condescends to busy himself with operations that seem to be more appropriate occupations for spiders and caterpillars than for his mighty energies. He expends his gigantic force upon a myriad of pigmy movements, which are individually of the most trifling character. His lot has been cast in the yarn-factory of the Messrs Blake of Norwich. It is those gentlemen who feed him, and it is for their advantage that he labours. Those who would see what it is that he is doing for his board, must pass round to the further side of the party-wall of the giant's reception-room; and there they will observe that the axle of the great fly-wheel passes through the wall, and moves a vertical shaft by the agency of a sort of cogged pinion, which, in its turn, sets a series of horizontal shafts revolving in a

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The scattering of great effort into diffused gentle movement, is a notable affair. In mechanical concerns, there is no such thing as the creation of force; all motory effects are merely mutations of exertion. The stream of power may be dammed up until it breaks forth as a cataract, or it may be spread out into a wide, smooth, lake-like reservoir; or it may be twisted and turned into new channels; but it cannot be absolutely originated out of nothing. The 100 horse-power of the steam-engine was primarily accumulated in the black coal, being communicated to it from the atmosphere when the wood, out of which the coal was made, was growing. That 100 horsepower suffices to drive 10,000 spindles, and would, perchance, turn some few hundreds more; but if successive additions were made, there would surely at last come a time when yet another pigmy spindle would be all that was required to arrest the heavings of the mighty giant-when a minute spindle would indeed be the final straw that broke the camel's back. An instructive illustration of this principle of transmutation of power could be seen until recently at the Messrs Blake's yarn-factory. It occasionally chanced that all the spindles contained in one of the apartments of the factory needed to be stopped at once, without arresting the movement of the rest of the machinery. Whenever this was done, the force which had been previously devoted to the driving of those spindles was immediately left in the arm of the giant as redundant strength. In an instant, this redundant power was transferred to the machinery, which still remained at work, and its spindles began to rattle round with a mad speed that threatened dire mischief to the work on hand. It has happened on more than one occasion, that the sudden putting out of gear of the frames in one room of the factory, has occasioned so much alarm to the work-people stationed in the other rooms, as to cause them to rush in frantic terror from their stations, possessed with the idea that the mill was about to be torn down about their ears.

Every casual inequality in the rate of a powerful steam-engine, whose proper work is of this diffusive kind, is attended not only with inconvenience, but also with absolute loss to the proprietors of the concern, from breakage of yarn, and from other analogous results. It hence becomes an affair of the utmost moment that some means should be contrived whereby an even and steadily regulated movement of the engine may be insured. The ordinary rotating governor, composed of the pair of balls on the divergent rods, does act as a bridle upon the machine, but unfortunately this bridle only comes into action when the increased speed has been entered upon; it is the increased speed that causes the centrifugal divergence of the balls. The engine must be tearing on too fast, before the rise of the more rapidly rotating balls can close the throttle-valve which admits the steam to the cylinder. What is especially required is a hand constantly applied to the lever-handle of the throttle-valve, which shall be so ready, and of such exquisite sensibility, that it can almost anticipate the fitful irregularities of the machinery. This requirement,

Messrs Child and Wilson have recently actually furnished. They have contrived a sensitive hand of brass and iron, and have patented the contrivance, under the name of the Differential-action Governor.' The steam-engine in the Messrs Blake's yarn-factory at Norwich, now works under the tutelage of this controlling hand; and the grim Bolton-and-Watt framed Titan may be there seen comporting itself with a singularly reformed and equable demeanour, under provocation which before would have driven him altogether wild.

The differential-action governor consists of a cogged pinion, with two toothed racks, one at each side, the teeth being pressed against the cogs of the pinion. One rack, which we will call A, comes down from the centrifugal governor balls of the steamengine, and turns the pinion on a central pivot as it turns up or down; it also so affects a valve beneath, as to let water into a pressure-cylinder beneath, turning it either above or below a piston-plate which traverses there; the water comes from a high cistern, and acts upon the piston by hydrostatic pressure, driving it up or down. The piston-plate ends above in the second rack, which we will call B. The rack B also turns the cogged pinion as it rises or falls. The pinion itself is on the lever-handle of the throttle-valve, and opens or closes the valve, letting steam into or shutting it off from the steam cylinder of the engine when it is lifted or depressed. When the rack A runs down without B being moved, the pinion is rolled on the rack B, and the throttle-valve narrowed. When the rack B runs up without A being moved, B is rolled on the rack A, and the throttle-valve diminished. When A goes up, and B down, pari passu, or the reverse, the pinion is rotated on the pivot, and the throttle-valve is neither opened nor closed. The downward pressure of the governor acts on rack A, and the upward pressure of the water on rack B, and this constitutes the 'differential action.' By this very clever contrivance, the steam is cut off at once, when the speed of the engine's movement is augmented in even the slightest degree: the instant sufficient steam is cut off from or admitted into the cylinder, the centrifugal force of the gyrating governor, and the pressure of the water, neutralise each other, and twirl the pinion round on its pivot, without producing any change of position in the throttle-valve, or alteration of capacity in its aperture. The two racks act upon the throttle-valve together, or separately, or even simultaneously in opposite directions, and so the movements of the throttle-valve are practically determined by the difference' between the hydraulic pressure and the centrifugal force; that is, by differential action' in the phraseology of the patentees. This is how Messrs Child and Wilson have contrived to endow stubborn and strong-willed steam-machinery with the power of self-control.

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a keener perception than his fellows. He declared that he was conscious of the extra strain having been thrown upon the engine; but, unfortunately for his reputation, it proved that when he fancied the frames were thrown out of gear, they were really in the act of being connected with the engine again.

The working of the factory under the superintendence of this beautiful piece of mechanism, is indeed absolutely regular; the revolutions of the fly-wheel are registered upon a dial-plate by the agency of hands, which serve the further purpose of indicating the precise time of the day. The steam-giant now drives the hands of a clock as well as the 10,000 spindles-he is now a chronometer as well as a spinner of wool.

SIBERIA AND CHINESE TATARY.* THE usual idea attaching to Siberia is that of a place of frightful exile in one of the most inhospitable parts of the globe. Now, there is no doubt of the winter being intensely severe, and of the great length of time requisite for communication with Europe; but, in summer, a great deal of it is a land flowing with milk and honey, full of vast mineral and vegetable wealth, and abounding in the most romantic and beautiful scenery. In the penal settlements there is a severe discipline for the convicts, but the mass of the population of Siberia is the most comfortable and best provided for in the Russian Empire, and this region now contains several towns that have the comforts and luxuries of European civilisation.

But the region to the south-east of Siberia, and on the north-western frontiers of China, was, until the travels of Mr Atkinson, a terra incognita to the European geographer, and even the volume already published by him comprises only a portion of his vast seven years' exploration of regions concerning which our geographical data are surmise and hearsay of inaccurate Tatars and Chinese. We learn from this interesting traveller, that it was only by being well armed that he overcame opposition, that he daily practised the rifle, and, on one occasion, had to hold his muzzle for ten minutes to a chief's breast before he could proceed. An examination of the sketches in his portfolios procured us one of the pleasantest days we have passed for a long time, and we feel persuaded that what is to follow will prove fully as important and curious as what has already appeared. In the meantime, the volume actually published takes us from the Ural to Lake Baikal on the east; and on the south, through the Kirghisian Steppe and the Gobi or Great Desert to the Chinese town of Chin Si, at the foot of the Syan Shan Mountains, which never had been seen by any European. Looking anxiously forward to the account of the further prosecution of his journey, we will, in the meantime, give some account of the ground already traversed.

Mr Atkinson says in his preface: 'I have several times looked upon what appeared inevitable death, and have had a fair allowance of hairbreadth escapes, when riding and sketching on the brinks of precipices with a perpendicular depth of 1500 feet below me. With these accompaniments, I traversed much of the hitherto unexplored regions of Central Asia, and produced 560 sketches of the scenery, executed with the moist colours made by Winsor and Newton-invaluable to an artist employed under such circumstances. I have used them on the sandy plains of Central Asia, in a temperature of 50 degrees Réaumur (144 degrees Fahrenheit), and in Siberia have had them frozen as solid as a mass of iron, when the temperature was 43 degrees Réaumur of frost, 11 degrees below the

* Atkinson's Oriental and Western Siberia. Hurst & Blackett.

point where the mercury became solid, and when I could make it into balls in my bullet-moulds. Some of my largest works have been painted with colours that have stood these severe tests; and for depth and purity of tone, have not been surpassed by those I have had fresh from the manufactory. With cakecolours, all my efforts would have been useless.'

Before we begin with a condensation and analysis of selected portions of the work of Mr Atkinson, it may not be amiss to call attention to the more prominent features of the physical geography of the Russian empire. West of the Ural, we find Russia in Europe to consist of the vast region lying between the Black, the Baltic, and the Caspian Seas, the greater part of it being level, and intersected by noble rivers, adjoining corn-producing alluvial regions, and populated, except in the Baltic provinces, chiefly by native Muscovites; but all to the eastward of the Volgathat is to say, in the ancient khanats of Orenburg and Siberia-the substratum of the population is Turkish, or, according to the new ethnological term, Ugrian. The mountain-chain of the Ural separates Russia from Siberia, and the whole of the territory to the east differs essentially from Russia Proper. The rivers Ob, Yenisei, and Lena drain the backbone of Asia, and are lost in the Frozen Ocean. The plains on the north, in the vicinity of the sea, are inhospitable, and unfit for habitation; but all the mountain-regions are full of the most valuable minerals. The Ural abounds in iron and precious stones, and the Altaï in gold and silver.

Ekaterinburg, or the City of Catherine, is the capital of the Ural; and here are the vast mechanical works and manufactories established by government for utilising the minerals of the district. They are built upon an enormous scale, and fitted up with machinery from the best makers in England, under the superintendence of an English mechanic. Precious stones are submitted to the art of the lapidary in another department. The jaspers are found in a great variety of colours-the most beautiful deep green, dark purple, dark violet, gray and cream colour; also a ribbon-jasper, with stripes of reddish brown and green. The porphyries are also of most brilliant colours. Orlite of a deep pink colour, with veins of yellow and black, is semi-transparent when made into vases. Here, also, the beautiful malachite vases and tablets are cut and polished. Those who remember the Great Exhibition of 1851, can have an idea of the beauty of this material and manufacture. Magnificent jasper-tables are inlaid with different-coloured stones, in imitation of birds, flowers, and foliage. Several men are employed in these for six successive years; but the wages are exceedingly low: a man engaged in carving foliage on some of the jasper vases, in a style not excelled in Europe, did not receive more than 3s. 8d. per month, with thirty-six pounds of rye-flour per month, to make into bread. Meat he was never supposed to eat. A married man with a family receives two poods of black flour for his wife, and one for each child, on which they look well. Mr Atkinson saw another man cutting a head of Ajax, after the antique, in jasper of two colours-the ground dark green, and the head yellowish cream-colour, in very high relief, and intended for a brooch. The traveller being an admirable artist, was a judge of such works. He pronounces it to have been a splendid production of art, such as would have raised the man to a high position in any country in Europe except Russia; and yet his pay was 3s. 8d. per month, with bread.

The great wealth of the Demidoff family comes chiefly from the Ural; their estate there is as large as Yorkshire, and full of iron of good quality. Of course, the population is scanty, and this accounts for the wealth of the Demidoffs not being fabulous. Foreigners talk much of the contrasts of wealth and

poverty in England; but the 3s. 8d. per month to the admirable artist-lapidary, and the Demidoff estate as large as Yorkshire, is a contrast still more striking than any we have in England.

English mechanics have been employed in the Ural from a very early period. Many years ago, a mechanic named Major was sent to Ekaterinburg, and when the Emperor Alexander I. visited the mountain, he was greatly pleased with the works Major had established; and, as a token of his satisfaction, presented him with a piece of land containing about twenty acres, with all the minerals it contained, for gold was known to be deposited there. He then began to excavate it, and wash the gold-sand, which proved lucrative, and the amount was weighed and entered in a book, and delivered to Major every evening, who deposited it in an iron box, which stood in his cabinet, the key of which he carried in his pocket. One Sunday evening, Major and his old housekeeper were alone in the house; he occupied in his cabinet, and she sitting in her own room, not far from the entrance-door. Suddenly her attention was drawn to a noise in the outward lobby, which induced her to leave the room. The moment she got into the entrance, she was seized, and thrown down a staircase leading to some apartments below. Her screams and the noise reached Major in his cabinet, who rushed out with a candle in his hand; a blow from an axe fell upon his head, and he never breathed again. After this the murderers possessed themselves of the box and gold, ransacked the place in search of other treasure, and then departed, closing the doors after them. All this time the old woman was lying at the foot of the stairs in a state of insensibility, quite unconscious of the tragedy which had been enacted in the rooms above. It was not until the morning of the third day after, that one of the officers from the machine-works went to consult Major on some matter of importance, when the murder was discovered.

A strict investigation was commenced The housekeeper, who was long unconscious, began to revive, but nothing clear could be got out of her, and the police were baffled. She had been seized so suddenly that she could not tell how many men were in the lobby. A merchant was suspected from his dealings in gold, but he proved that he was distant ninety versts from the spot at six o'clock on the morning of the murder. Years passed on without a discovery; but the quantity of gold stolen from the mines, and sent into Tatary and Bokhara, had become so enormous, that the Russian government determined to discover how it was effected. So a spy was sent to Ekaterinburg, disguised as a peasant. Even the police authorities on the spot were not aware of his mission. He ingratiated himself at the public-houses with the characters likely to throw light on the subject, and discovered that there were persons in these gold-robberies far away from Ekaterinburg through whom the precious metal was got out of the country into Tatary. He then proceeded to Omsk, and began to offer gold to the Tatars, but with great caution; and he was soon introduced to the great gold-dealer, whose influence was so great that the Tatars dared not buy gold unless it had passed through his hands. His interview took place in the back-room of a large house, where a man with a long Bokhara dress tied round his waist with a shawl, took his seat at the table, and asked the assumed peasant in a very rude manner how much gold he had stolen, where he came from, and other questions calculated to frighten him. All these were answered in a very submissive tone. The gold was then ordered to be produced, which was done, and the weight of each packet marked thereon. The Tatar was asked to pour out all the gold into a scale, but to this the peasant objected, as it was found to weigh less than the seller knew it to be, but

the receiver said: "What, thief! thou art not content with robbing thy employers, but thou wishest to cheat me, I shall soon hear of thee in the mines of Siberia.' He then offered an insignificant amount for the gold, saying that he gave him five minutes to consider whether he would take the money or be handed over to the police. The arrest of the gang then took place by the agents of the police who had been called upon by the spy, who, having accomplished his mission in Omsk, started for Ekaterinburg, and procured the arrest of the merchant who had been previously taken up, but acquitted of the murder; his wife now revealed where the gold was buried, and on searching for it, they found the axe with which the murder had been committed. This man had long been engaged in gold-smuggling; he associated with those who stole it from the mines. For this purpose, he required good horses, and possessed one of extraordinary power and speed. As soon as the gold had been secured after Major's murder, he mounted his horse, and in about four hours, rode ninety versts, presenting himself to the director at Kamenskoï. The murder was now proved against all who had been engaged in it; they were sentenced to run the gantlet' (that is, to walk between the lines formed by a regiment of soldiers consisting of 3000 men, each man striking the victim with a rod), and died immediately after the punishment. The bands of gold-stealers were broken up; some were sent to the mines in Siberia, and the gendarme returned to St Petersburg to receive a reward for his really dangerous labour.

The Altaï is the mountain-range in the south of Siberia, in which the Yenisei, and other large rivers of Siberia, flowing into the White Sea, have their source. Parts of it are covered with dense forests of cedars, with a thick underwood which renders progress slow; other parts are clear of bushes, the ground being covered with grass and plants, and above, gigantic cedars, their gnarled and twisted branches forming a canopy through which the sun scarcely penetrates. This is on the northern slope of the Altaï; but the southern slope has very little forest. Here are seen in summer the skeletons of Kalmuck winter-dwellings-the birch-bark is stripped off these conical houses, and only the bare poles remain. At this time of the year, the inhabitants are up in the mountains, where they find plenty of grass for their cattle, and where they are free from the mosquitoes. In autumn, they return to the lower grounds, cover their yourts with new bark, and, in a few days, their winter dwellings are completed. On the river Arakym, Atkinson saw many black squirrels, skipping about in the branches; they enlivened the scene, sitting among the foliage. Their fur is a dark gray in winter, at which season Kalmucks kill them, for the fur is not good in summer. Stags are numerous in these mountains, and the Arakym Valley is a great battle-field of bucks in the rutting season. In summer, they are all in the higher regions near the snow, where the mosquitoes and flies cannot follow them. Even the bears, with their rough shaggy coats, cannot remain in the valleys in summer, where these insects are extremely numerous.

Bear-hunting exploits are common in these mountains. One afternoon, a Cossack officer was quietly strolling through the forest alone and unarmed, when he observed a she-bear and her two cubs playing together. When she became aware of his presence, she growled, drove her young ones into a tree for shelter, and mounted guard at the foot of it to defend them. The Cossack then made a temporary retreat, and selected a birch club, four feet long, the quality of which he tested by blows on a tree. When the old bear saw him, she began to growl and pace about uneasily; but the man advanced over a fine grassy turf, with no shrubs or bushes to entangle

his feet. The bear then made a rush at him, and rising on her hind-legs, intended to give him a settler with her powerful paws, or hug him to death; but he made a sweep with his club, and dealt such a blow that she toppled over. Many rounds were fought, her antagonist keeping clear of her paws. She endeavoured to get behind him, but a blow of the cudgel drove her back, until at last she began a retreat towards the forest; but the moment the Cossack moved to the tree, the bear would rush out, taking care not to come within his reach, the cubs remaining in the branches as spectators. At this time, a woodman, returning to the gold-mine, rode into the glade; his first impulse was to run, but the Cossack ordered him to dismount, take off his saddlebags, and secure the cubs in them. They then started for the village, followed by the bear, that charged repeatedly, and was as often beaten back by the Cossack with his club, who covered the retreat; each time the bear was laid prostrate, and finally would not approach within striking distance: she returned to the forest, and was never seen again. This was a feat of extraordinary daring, skill, strength, and activity; but, after all, our sympathies are with the poor inoffensive bear.

The bear, however, it must be admitted, is not always the injured party. When at the Lake Baikal, Atkinson mentions that three villagers went to hunt in a forest. His informant lost sight of his two companions, lighted a fire, took his evening meal, and was soon fast asleep. Two or three hours had passed when he was awakened by something near him, and, turning his head, he observed by the light of his fire a large bear going down the bank to the little stream. He divined the object of the brute in an instant. Bruin was going for water to put the fire out, that he might then devour his victim; for it is an ascertained fact that a bear will not attack a man when sleeping by a fire, but will first go into the water and saturate his fur, to put out the fire. It was but the work of a moment for the hunter to seize his rifle, and stop the proceedings of the animal with a bullet as it was ascending the bank.

The adventures in Mongolia, particularly in the Gobi, lying between the Siberian Altaï and the Chinese mountain of Syan Shan, are highly interesting, and we are introduced to the nomade Kirghisian sultans, who appear to be the purest orientals of the Turkish race, having no tincture of European civilisation, like those of Persia, Siberia, or Turkey proper. Every Kirghisian has his battle-axe hanging from his saddle, as in the days of Genghis Khan; and these so-called sultans live like the patriarchs of the Old Testament, estimating their power by their sheep, their goats, and cattle. There was a commotion as Mr Atkinson approached the aoul of Sultan Baspasihan; and the escort guided him to a large cattle enclosure, with a tall spear stuck into the ground at the door, and a long tuft of black horsehair hanging beneath its glittering head. This is an old Turkish custom, whence the dignity of a pacha of one, two, or three tails, who, since the modern reforms in the Ottoman Empire, are called siva, ferik, and mushir, corresponding with the ranks of major-general, lieutenantgeneral, and full general.

Sultan Baspasihan, who welcomed Mr Atkinson, was a strong ruddy-faced man, dressed in a black velvet tunic edged with sable, and wore a deep crimson shawl round his waist. On his head was a red cloth conical cap trimmed with fox-skin, with an owl's feather hanging from the top, shewing his descent from Genghis Khan. A Bokhara carpet was spread, and two boys entered, bringing in tea and fruit. These were his two sons. Silk curtains hanging on one side covered the sleeping-place, and near this a bearcoote, or large black eagle, and falcon were